What Is Minimum Wage In Mexico?

While Mexico raised its minimum wage this year, it remains substantially below that found in the United States.

According to Littler, the Mexican Minimum Wage Commission determined to increase the minimum wage for 2015 by 4.2 percent, which follow the inflation rate. That makes the wage 70.10 pesos a day for Zone A and 66.45 pesos for Zone B.

Zone A covers most metropolitan areas, including the capital, Mexico City.

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In dollars, both are less than $5, The Wall Street Journal reported. The U.S. minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, more than Mexico’s minimum salary for a day’s work.

The original proposal to the commission was an increase by 23 percent to 83 pesos, but to increase the minimum wage above the rate of inflation would necessitate a change in law.

Estimates indicate 6.5 million Mexicans, 13 percent of the workforce, earn the minimum wage, according to the government statistics agency, the WSJ reported.

Since 1982, the peso has experienced a sharp decline, according to the Mexico Gulf Reporter, creating a striking contrast with the rising U.S. dollar. Prior to that, it had risen 54 percent starting in 1934.

Central Bank Deputy Governor Manuel Sánchez warned of the increases and fueling inflation, the main cause of the decline during the ’80s and ’90s.

“This process yielded lower purchasing power for all salaries and underscores the vital necessity of protecting the significant ground gained in the last decade in the battle to control inflation,” Sánchez told the WSJ.

According to the Reporter, the Mexican federal constitution’s Article 123 reads, “The general minimum wage must be sufficient to satisfy the normal material, social, and cultural needs of the head of a family and to provide for the compulsory education of his children.”

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Over 60 percent of the people in Mexico’s state of Jalisco, however, earn less than subsistence income.

“The only way to break this vicious circle is to systematically raise productivity,” head of Cidac think tank Luis Rubio said, according to the WSJ.

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